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AI Choice Engine

Model comparison

GLM 5.3 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Z.ai against Mistral, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

Z.ai

GLM 5.3

Frontier · Open weights

vs

Mistral

Mistral Medium 3.5

Frontier · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationGLM 5.3Mistral Medium 3.5
ProviderZ.aiMistral
TierFrontierFrontier
Context windowWinner: 1M262K
Max output128KNot verifiedUnverified
Input / 1M tokensWinner: $1.40$1.50
Output / 1M tokensWinner: $4.40$7.50
WeightsOpenOpen
Parameters753B total (MoE; active count unpublished)128B dense
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxNot verifiedUnverified
Modalitiestexttext, image
Licenseglm-5.3 (custom)Modified MIT
API model idglm-5.3mistral-medium-3-5
ReleasedAugust 14, 2026April 28, 2026
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)44.8Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified14.2
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-08-14)88.2Not verifiedUnverified
DeepSWE 1.1 (2026-08-14)66.9Not verifiedUnverified
Humanity's Last Exam (2026-08-14)62.5Not verifiedUnverified
SWE-bench Verified (2026-09-01)95.4Not verifiedUnverified

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

Pricing tiers

GLM 5.3: Token API listed at $1.40/$4.40 per MTok from 2026-08-18 (cached input $0.26); Coding Plan access on a points quota. 1M context, 128K max output per official docs; thinking always on. 753B total MoE per the Hugging Face card (active count unpublished).

Mistral Medium 3.5: Mistral first-party API $1.50/$7.50 per MTok; Mistral advertises up to 90% off cached input (exact cached rate not verified). Open weights under a Modified MIT licence. 128B dense.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

GLM 5.3

GLM 5.3 is Zhipu's flagship (~753B MoE), near the top of the leaderboards, and the current GLM Coding Plan default.

Best for

  • Coding Plan subscribers
  • Long-horizon coding
  • Chinese + English

Watch out

Open weights dropped 2026-08-28 under Z.ai's custom glm-5.3 licence (not a standard open-source licence — review before commercial use; secondary coverage says >$10B-revenue providers need a security review). 5.2/5.1 Coding Plan requests route to 5.3.

FrontierOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the model Mistral calls its new flagship — a 128B dense open-weight model with a 256K context, powering its Vibe remote agents.

Best for

  • EU-hosted frontier work
  • Open-weight self-hosting
  • Mistral Vibe agents

Watch out

Far behind US and Chinese frontier models on the Artificial Analysis index; max output is not published. Check the Modified MIT terms before redistribution.

When the cheaper one wins

GLM 5.3 is cheaper on output at $4.40 per million tokens against $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5 — about 1.7×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, reasoning levels.
  • 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? GLM 5.3 · Mistral Medium 3.5

Common questions

GLM 5.3 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is GLM 5.3 or Mistral Medium 3.5 cheaper for input?
GLM 5.3 is cheaper at $1.40 per million input tokens, against $1.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5 — roughly 1.1× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; GLM 5.3 has tiered pricing: Token API listed at $1.40/$4.40 per MTok from 2026-08-18 (cached input $0.26); Coding Plan access on a points quota. 1M context, 128K max output per official docs; thinking always on. 753B total MoE per the Hugging Face card (active count unpublished). Mistral Medium 3.5 has tiered pricing: Mistral first-party API $1.50/$7.50 per MTok; Mistral advertises up to 90% off cached input (exact cached rate not verified). Open weights under a Modified MIT licence. 128B dense.
Is GLM 5.3 or Mistral Medium 3.5 cheaper for output?
GLM 5.3 is cheaper at $4.40 per million output tokens, against $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5 — roughly 1.7× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; GLM 5.3 has tiered pricing: Token API listed at $1.40/$4.40 per MTok from 2026-08-18 (cached input $0.26); Coding Plan access on a points quota. 1M context, 128K max output per official docs; thinking always on. 753B total MoE per the Hugging Face card (active count unpublished). Mistral Medium 3.5 has tiered pricing: Mistral first-party API $1.50/$7.50 per MTok; Mistral advertises up to 90% off cached input (exact cached rate not verified). Open weights under a Modified MIT licence. 128B dense.
Which has the larger context window, GLM 5.3 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
GLM 5.3 accepts 1M tokens against 262K for Mistral Medium 3.5. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Should I use GLM 5.3 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Both sit in the frontier tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. GLM 5.3 suits coding plan subscribers; Mistral Medium 3.5 suits eu-hosted frontier work.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: GLM 5.3 costs $1.40 per 1M tokens versus $1.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5 — a 1.1x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: GLM 5.3 takes 1M against 262K for Mistral Medium 3.5 — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
  • Measured capability: GLM 5.3 leads Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 44.8 to 14.2 (measured 2026-09-26).
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